Applying the Discourse-Historical Approach to study the uses of time legitimizing decision-making (ECREA Summer School Research Paper)

Denis, Lydie [UCL]

This research paper is a summary of the development of my ongoing doctoral research. In brief, my research takes curiosity in the way time and temporality are articulated in the political discourse managing the crisis, more specifically what is referred to as the ‘decision-making process’ in crises (Boin et al., 2021). At the temporal level, it is the capacity to order social life and to create collective time regimes through synchronization and normative timing (Jordheim & Ytreberg, 2021; Jordheim & Wigen, 2018) that are at stake. The ordering of social life and merging of individual temporalities into collective ones to obtain a common response ), ultimately raises the question of power and its centrality in discourse. Therefore, the links between temporality and legitimization (Van Leeuwen, 2007; Van Leeuwen & Wodak, 1999) of political discourse in crisis are of great interest.